


google dot com am i trans

by redbluezero



Category: Sword Art Online (Anime & Manga), ソードアート・オンライン - 川原礫 | Sword Art Online - Kawahara Reki
Genre: Gen, Trans Character, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:54:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25305586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redbluezero/pseuds/redbluezero
Summary: With shaky fingertips, she typed:google dot comThere was no need, since she was already in Google Chrome, but thirteen year old Shino wasn’t too tech savvy. The search bar loaded up and she gulped hard. She clicked on it and typed something more important:am i trans
Comments: 1
Kudos: 13





	google dot com am i trans

“We’ll be right back, okay? Remember, don’t open the door for anyone! If anything happens, just call us from the home phone,” Shino’s grandfather called from the foyer. He gave her a small wave before he walked out and shut the door behind him. As soon as Shino heard the lock click, she made a mad dash to her mother’s room. She ran so fast that her socks slipped across the smooth, wooden floor.

The reason for her desperation was at the end of the hallway and to the right— sitting atop a quaint wooden desk was the family computer.

Shino tiptoed into the room and sat down in the rolling chair. She kicked the ground and did a quick spin, as all almost thirteen year olds would, before realizing that there were more important matters at hand. Her family would only be out grocery shopping for so long, so Shino needed to act fast.

She attempted to crack her knuckles in a cool, intimidating fashion, then set her right hand on the computer mouse. She clicked on Google Chrome, then pressed Ctrl + Shift + n on the keyboard with her left hand. A new window popped up with the message “You’ve gone incognito” displayed across it. Shino gulped and clicked on the search bar. Then, her right hand moved from the mouse and onto the keyboard. With shaky fingertips, she typed:

_ google dot com _

There was no need, since she was already in Google Chrome, but thirteen year old Shino wasn’t too tech savvy. The search bar loaded up and she gulped hard. She clicked on it and typed something more important:

_ am i trans _

Shino had first found out about the word at school. Some bully had spit gum in her hair, so she had to chop some of it off. It was already short to begin with; however, since she’d let her hair down that day, the rest finally went. The next day, she showed up at school with a haircut befitting of her male classmates. That was when one of them called her the word. She’d been bullied a  _ lot  _ in the past, but never had she heard that word.

For all the reading Shino did, she had no idea as to what it meant. It rang a bell, so it was probably something she’d heard on the news, but she didn’t actually know the meaning. She asked a teacher, who reluctantly explained to her that it was a term for “boys who want to be girls and girls who want to be boys”. He said it with a look of scorn, as if it was a bad thing, then ran off. Shino was left with more questions than answers.

On the way home from school that day, she stopped by the library. However, instead of making a beeline for the young adult fantasy section, she walked over to the nonfiction books. She figured asking a librarian for help would not be the smartest decision, so Shino painstakingly searched the shelves until she  _ finally  _ found something relevant. She checked the glossary, went to the pages with the word she wanted, and became even  _ more  _ confused.

It turned out it wasn’t as simple as “boys who want to be girls and girls who want to be boys”. There were many layers to the word, such as people who were both or neither or somewhere between the two. There were passages by people with all sorts of different experiences, too, which didn’t make much sense to Shino. After all, if the word was so broad, how could she ever  _ really  _ figure out the meaning? For once, reading was  _ hard! _

Then she found a passage written by a man who used the word to refer to himself. His was the most descriptive, in Shino’s opinion, when it came to how he felt and what the word meant to him. He detailed memories from his childhood, such as how he would feel giddy when other boys on the playground saw him as one of them. Only then did the word, amongst other things, finally click for Shino.

Back when her peers let her play with them, before the incident, she too loved to play on the same team as the boys. Whenever she made a self-insert character for the stories she read, it was always a man. She also liked the low pitch of her voice; it was still pretty high, but it was lower than the other girls in her grade. On the other hand, she hated her chest region and constantly wore baggy clothes to cover it. She connected, no,  _ related  _ to the passage on a profound level.

But what did that say about  _ her? _

With sweat beading down her face, Shino pressed the enter button. The key made a clicking noise, whatever was stuck beneath it crunching a bit, and the Google search page began to load up results. After a few seconds, blog posts and videos popped up. There was so much content that Shino didn’t know where to start. She just prayed that she wasn’t going to have another identity crisis.

She moved her right hand back to the mouse and hovered the cursor over the first link. She jammed her index finger onto the left button, as if to make  _ sure  _ it processed her request, and waited. It opened up to a forum web page that had an image attached. It was a short, curt message behind a basic background. It read:

_ Kid, I gotta hand it to you. _

_ If you googled that, the answer is ‘probably’ _

Shino took her hands off of the desk and buried her face in them. She squished her cheeks with her fingers and let out a long, muffled scream. After those few minutes of initial panic, though, she braved the computer screen again. The remainder of the post advised browsing the forum to see if it was relatable, but Shino figured she’d gone through that step already. After all, the only reason she was even on the post was because she  _ had  _ read through people’s experiences and  _ had  _ related to them.

Shino clicked on the forum’s search bar. Since it seemed to be a general forum, not just the result for a singular Google search, she realized that she should probably look for more information there. She gulped hard a second time and typed:

_ what to do if im trans _

She held down the delete key and watched the letters disappear. She was almost embarrassed to type it, to admit it. But there really was no turning back from the initial search query, was there? She retyped it and added:

_ what to do if im trans boy teen _

Shino wasn’t actually thirteen yet, but her birthday was in three months so she tacked on the extra search word anyway. With a matter this important, every boolean counted! Soon enough, another boatload of content filled the screen. Shino glanced to the top right of the Google Chrome window to make sure she was still in incognito mode; thankfully, a little icon with a fedora and round glasses was present. She sighed in relief and scrolled through the first few forum posts that’d popped up.

There were a lot of new, confusing words. Most of the posts had to do with being “questioning” and proposing that one subtly change up his “gender expression”. One post suggested getting a haircut, which Shino chuckled at since it was how all of the Google-ing had started. She scrolled past that and found another post that suggested testing out a different personal pronoun. She put that idea on hold; she felt that, if she were to start using a masculine pronoun so suddenly, people would think that she was simply a lesbian and not probably-maybe-trans. Another post recommended playing as a male avatar in a video game and seeing how it felt; that was something she could try out!

Shino had never played video games before, being a bookworm rather than a geek, but she was willing to give it a shot. At that moment, she recalled an advert that she had heard on the news the day prior. Something about a new device called NerveGear that had the ability to create a perfect virtual reality… wouldn’t that be the perfect place to test the waters? Shino hurriedly clicked the search bar again with a small grin on her face and found the official website for the device. She clicked again on the FAQ section and read up about user avatars.

_ Gender is fixed to the player’s sex. _

The smile disappeared from Shino’s face and she let out a grumble. So much for that idea. She was back at square one, since playing a regular computer game as a guy would probably help her come to a conclusion as much as writing her self insert character (a male demigod warrior named Arke) into the  _ Dragonlance Chronicles  _ trilogy of books did. There was only one thing left to try.

Shino wasn’t fond of change. She preferred staying consistent and within her little bubble. Applying the word to herself was going to be hard, but she knew she needed verbal confirmation. The very thought made her mouth go dry. Her lips trembled; whether it was in anticipation or fear, she couldn’t tell. Even so, she managed to force out in a quiet voice,

“I… am Asada… Shino? And I… am a boy.”

The computer screen, due to a few minutes without use, dimmed black. Shino’s reflection, uneven short hair and all, appeared in the place of the webpage.

He smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> And that was how Shino narrowly avoided getting trapped in Sword Art Online and, oh, you know, found out that he was transgender.  
> —  
> Anyway, I may write more of this but for now it’s a one-shot. No beta because it’s 5 AM. I have a name for transman!Sinon already though lol. I’ve been feeling a bit dysphoric lately so I wrote this to remind myself of how far I’ve come.


End file.
